Tag Archives: Deborah Vollmer

Chevy Chase

Town of Chevy Chase Election Results

The Town of Chevy Chase held its municipal elections today for three of the five seats on the Town Council. There were two open seats as Mayor Mary Flynn and former Mayor Scott Fosler decided not to run for reelection.

Barney Rush (i) 566
Kirk Renaud: 552
Wicca Davidson: 493
Fred Cecere: 349
Deborah Vollmer: 66

Fred Cecere’s decision to run made the election more interesting because he was the candidate elected to a term in the 2015 stealth write-in campaign. Confusing “not illegal” with “right,” only people in his support group were alerted to his decision to run and they were told to keep it secret. Another example of the decay of democratic norms even in a small town.

Fred stepped down reluctantly after a term, as he had promised to serve only one term. After a year, however, he decided to run again, this time openly. In a good example of how breaking norms results in new laws to get people to adhere to what were formerly common sense values, the Town now requires write-in candidates to register with the Town before the election.

Running in her umpteenth election, Deborah Vollmer is best known in the Town for her seemingly endless failed lawsuits against her neighbors. (Disclosure: I was mayor of the Town at the time and Deborah also sued the Town unsuccessfully to try and overturn the permit.)

More recently, Deborah has gotten press for refusing to pay the monthly fee that Pepco charges if you didn’t let them replace your old meter with a smart meter. Though the fees have piled up, I don’t think her lights have been turned off yet.

Instead of Fred and Deborah, the Town reelected Barney Rush, who is tipped to be the next mayor. Joining him will be new councilmembers Kirk Renaud and Wicca Davidson. Kirk has been active on the town’s committee on climate change, while Wicca has chaired the committee on community relations. Continuing with them will be Cecily Baskir and Joel Rubin, who is currently seeking election to the House of Delegates as a Democrat,.

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Town of Chevy Chase

Town of Chevy Chase Election Results

The Town of Chevy Chase had an usually competitive election with seven candidates for the three seats. The Council has a total of five seats with staggered two-year terms.

There are 2574 registered voters in the Town and 889 cast ballots for a 35 percent turnout. Our Town’s oldest resident, Kathleen Williams who is a very young 102, not only voted but came to the Town’s Annual Meeting where she received a round of applause.

And now to the results with the percentages being out of total ballots cast:

Vicky Taplin: 492 (55.3%)
Kathy Strom: 467 (52.3%)
Al Lang: 400 (45.0%)
Kathie Legg: 390 (43.9%)
Grant Davies: 366 (41.2%)
Donald Farren: 163 (18.3%)
Deborah Vollmer: 74 (8.3%)

There were a total of 2352 votes, fewer than the 2667 votes cast. While some were encouraging bullet votes (casting fewer votes than the maximum of three) in this election, it had a smaller impact than in previous elections where this was a major factors. All but 11.8% of votes were cast.

Both incumbents, Kathy Strom and Al Lang, were reelected but Al beat newcomer Kathie Legg by just 10 votes. Kathie knocked on the door of every single Town resident in a really impressive effort and very good campaign that fell just short.

Don Farren ran on a pro-Purple Line platform–the centerpiece of his campaign. He expressed repeatedly the belief that there was less opposition and much more support for the light-rail line in the Town than realized. That appears to have been repudiated at the polls, as Don received less than one-fifth of the vote.

Note: I voted for Kathy Strom, Vicky Taplin, and Kathie Legg.

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